Dr. Alan Ahearne joined the Cairnes School of Business and Economics in 2005. He is a member of the Commission (Board) of the Central Bank of Ireland. Dr. Ahearne served as Special Advisor to the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan from March 2009 to March 2011. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at Bruegel, the Brussels-based think tank, and is a Research Associate at the Institute for International Integration Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Before joining NUIG, he was Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, where he worked for seven years. He has taught economics at Carnegie Mellon University, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, and the University of Limerick.  He began his professional career with Coopers & Lybrand and also worked for Bank of Ireland.

Dr. Ahearne received a B.B.S. from the University of Limerick in 1989, an M.Econ.Sc. from University College Dublin in 1991 and an M.Sc. (1995) and a Ph.D. (1998), both in economics, from Carnegie Mellon University. At Carnegie Mellon, he received several awards and honours, including the William Larimer Mellon Doctoral Fellowship (1993-1996) and the Excellence in Teaching Award (1997).

Selected Publications

1.  “Europe’s External Monetary and Financial Relations since the Euro: A Review and a Proposal” (with Barry Eichengreen) in "Fragmented Power: Europe and the Global Economy" Edited by André Sapir, July 2007. [conference paper]
2.   "Information Costs and Home Bias: An Analysis of U.S. Holdings of Foreign Equities" (with William Griever and Frank Warnock), Journal of International Economics, vol. 62, (March 2004) pp. 313-336. [article]
3. "Preventing Deflation: Lessons from Japan's Experience in the 1990s" (with Steve Kamin, Joseph Gagnon, and others), International Finance Discussion Papers 729. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2002). [working paper]